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Working or teaching in rural schools is not easy and evidence has shown that most teachers
prefer working in urban areas. This study aimed to find out factors contributing to teachers‟
retention in rural public secondary schools. In addition, the study intended to find out challenges
facing teachers in rural public secondary schools and strategies to overcome such challenges.
Mixed research approach and convergent parallel research design were employed. 83
Participants were involved from Iringa rural district; simple random sampling was employed to
get respondents to fill in questionnaires and purposive sampling to get participants in focus group
discussion and interview. Data was collected by using interview, focus group discussion and
questionnaires. In analysis SPSS version 16 was used in analyzing quantitative data and thematic
analysis for qualitative data. Research has also shown that there is still a big number of teachers
in rural schools and there are multiple factors which make them to remain in rural schools. The
findings indicated that most teachers remain in rural schools because the government assigned
them to teach in rural schools and it is difficult to get transfer, engaging in agricultural activities,
job security and strong support from colleague. The study recommended that in order for more
teachers to remain in rural public secondary schools; there is a need for the government to
improve working condition in rural schools. Working condition will improve by making sure
there is availability of teachers‟ houses and social services like health centers, water and
transport; most of teachers will be attracted to teach in rural schools. The study has implications
to the government, ministry responsible for education, teachers training institutions and
education leaders. |
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